So I didn’t post last week’s mani because, despite loving the base color (OPI Schnappes Out Of It!) and getting nearly flawless coverage in only one coat, I proceeded to eff it up by attempting a glitter gradient on a couple of accent nails with a gold micro-glitter that was way too dense to work as a gradient. The color combo was gorgeous, but it ended up looking clumsy and heavy. Then that one-coat base started chipping after only a day and a half even after using seche vite as a top coat, and by wednesday I was pretty done with the whole thing. I dealt with it until Thursday and then took it off and went bare-nailed until Sunday, which felt weird, let me tell you.

This week, though… Can we talk for a minute about how much I LOVE this polish?

This is Mentality “Marmalade”, from the Candy Jelly Holo collection, and it is capital-G Gorgeous! It’s my first holo polish and I can’t stop staring at my fingers. What I especially love is that in most lighting it looks like that photo up there – a shimmery but slightly demure copper or rose gold color. But get out in the sun (or in my case, turn on the camera flash) and it turns into this:

Rainbows ahoy! I can’t take how beautiful this is, seriously. And not only is it stunning to look at, but it applied really cleanly and was opaque in 2 coats. I wound up with a few air bubbles on a couple nails (and a LOT on my thumb, for some reason) but I’m 99% sure that’s my fault – I was a bit unnecessarily finnicky with the second coat and caused some dragging.

I should note, though, that like last week I’m already getting small chips and tip wear, which is annoying. I find almost all of my shimmer polishes have a fragile finish like that and I really don’t know why. I just hope I can baby this mani and make it through the week without disastrous damage, because right now I don’t ever want to take this polish off!

When I bought this I also bought two of Mentality’s shimmer polishes, and now I can’t wait to try them out. If they’re anywhere near as good as this, I might find myself with a new addiction.